Home Flooded Home

The intersection of the Fox and Illinois Rivers was flooded by this past weekend's rains. Homes and businesses in Ottawa, Utica, LaSalle, Wedron, and several others are under water. Including my grade school, Central Elementary. My hea rt brea ks a little to think about it. On the other hand, a few years back they built a levee around the high school football field, to prevent flood damage to the field. There was and still is a flood wall protecting the building. However, because of this levee, water that otherwise would have covered the sacred grass of the high school football field and the adjacent parking lot, is in people's homes, cars, businesses, and garages.

I'd like to ask:
Is it worth the price?
Is the grass on the football field THAT important?
What is the value of a parking lot? What is the value of a home?
Is a football team less of a football team if their field floods on occasion?
Would practicing in the mud make them worse?
Does the world stop if a small town in the middle of Illinois has to cancel or relocate a football game because of a flood?

I support high school sports, but I don't support putting people's homes at risk for them. So, just as I said when I was at Central Elementary boldly protesting the building of the levee, "LOOSE THE LEVEE!!!"

The local newspaper

That's my rant.

Waha

My Mid-College Crisis (#7)

Once again I've found myself unsure of what I'd like to do with my life. I have this crisis roughly once a semester. However, the reality that I'm going to have to actually decide what to do after I graduate is slowly creeping up on me. Here are the options currently on the table:

Go to Medical School
Go to Biomedical Engineering Grad School
Go to Psychology Grad School
Go to a one year Nursing Clinical program
Get a job in Biomedical Engineering
Get a job in something else
Some combination of 2 or more of the above options

I clearly have a big table, and more options can sometimes make a decision more difficult. The catch to it all is, I need to start preparing now for whatever choice it is I make. If I need to take the GRE or the FE; I'll have to start planning for it.

Uff da,

Waha

Tichli Didn't Write a Spider in the Music

It began as a normal day in wind ensemble... I was sitting vigorously absorbed in Frank Tichli's piece Wild Nights. It was one of those rehearsals when you know that no one practiced over the weekend, and we were all awaiting Dr. Meghini's speech about how our chops need to be exercised regularly. Furthermore, Dr.Meghini had decided it would be a good time to kick the tempo up on the piece. As we fumbled through the 30th measure of what sounded like the morning after a wild night, I noticed a spider the size of half dollar hanging from the ceiling and approaching my music stand rapidly. I stopped breathing and hence, stopped playing, and I slowly slid my chair backwards. The low brass players behind me probably thought this was quite the morning entertainment. An inch above my music stand, the spider stopped, sat there for what felt like an hour, and turned around and headed back towards the ceiling. My heart beat returned and my lungs re-inflated as I made some attempt at finding where we were in the music. However, the ceiling was holding more of my attention than even the best Tichli piece could. And through Meghini's entire speech I assume was about practicing over the weekend, my eyes were fixed on the ceiling searching for my long lost friend.

I guess that's one way to get the blood flowing on a Monday.

Waha

The Weight of My Eyelids

I wonder if you can measure it? How tired one is by the weight of their eyelids? I notice this morning as I woke up for my 7am running group, that I started to feel feverish as I attempted to put my contact lenses into my eyes. I had to sit down as dizziness and nausea set in. I assume this is a direct result of my lack of sleep. I have an issue... I like to talk. I arrived home at 4:30pm yesterday, having a whole evening to complete my organic chemistry homework. I talked to my friend, Hadas, as we watched an old episode of Friends in the living room until dinner time, 5:30. I started a conversation at dinner about what it means to be a good leader until 6:30. I'm not sure where the rest of the night went, but I didn't start my homework until 10:30, and I didn't finish until 1:30. So, when I rose this morning at 6:45... it didn't feel good. It's been that kind of week, every night well under 6 hours of sleep. I just keep thinking about how comfortable my bed is, and how it's waiting for me to crawl in it. I think I can hear it crying across campus now. The dilemma I often face: Is it worth losing sleep and putting my school work at risk to make time for those conversations?

On a completely different note, I took on the role of a leader in my IPRO group! I planned my first agenda on Tuesday (I need to do one for tonight, too). The meeting went well, and we even were done early, which I think made people happy. I don't think I previously understood how difficult it can be to lead a meeting of 14 of my peers. I've been in leadership rolls before, but often leading people who were younger than me. Leading peers is harder than leading 5th and 6th grade Sunday school kids though! These people have lots of ideas about how I should be doing my job, and are much more difficult to demand attention from because they're excited about their ideas for the project. I think this is going to be a leadership roll that will push me to develop new aspects of my leadership skills, and will also challenge me to become a stronger leader than I was before in all aspects of leadership. I like challenges, so I think it will be fun.

Challenging myself to keeping my eyes open all day,

Waha

Please Don't Stop the Music

Madonna got it right. I was leaving band yesterday morning, and I realized that despite my severe sleep deprivation, I was really excited about the long day ahead of me. In fact, I was smiling at 8:30am--hence my state of shock. It then hit me like a bass drum in a John Phillip Sousa, I love making music. Well, I knew that, but I always just thought I liked playing myself. However, what I realized is I have an even more intense enjoyment of that feeling of magic when a whole room of musicians play together, the sensation of being inside of a piece of music. It's a resonance that physics can't describe, and electronics can't recreate (no offense Madonna your electric keyboard won't do it for me, but if it works for you more power to ya). This sensation contains a level of simplicity, human error, and inaccuracy that makes it art and not science. I love to be lost in that art, because no one is trying to explain it, and they couldn't even if they tried. There isn't a mathematical transform that can find the limit of a composition as it approaches passion. I'm sorry Euler, but even using tiny increments the Limit Does NOT Exist! I think that's fabulous. It's like my mini vacation two mornings a week...